it's dark in her room
by racketeering
Summary: they are going through the unimaginable. drabble. melizabeth, canon-verse.


_-it's dark in her room-_

 **.**

 **.**

\- _stay alive,_ never really meant much to him.

It was always a frail promise, molded only under the trembling hands of his wife as she'd bid him farewell beneath the stairwell, silent tears painting her curved, doll-face a sunset red.

He would kiss her hands and nod.

 _-for you, anything,_ he would respond, because even if it was a promise as weak as the foundation of purity, it would give her what little reassurance she needed to sleep each and every night.

It never occurred to him that the words coming from _his_ lips would mean just as little.

.

.

(there's so much blood – it's _everywhere_ – he was too late _too late notagainnot_ _ **again**_ _)_

.

.

 _Is she breathing? Will she survive – god just_ _ **stay alive-**_

.

.

 _one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten._

He counted the seconds that passed between her breaths – uneven and frail, like her lungs were crafted of fine glass.

 _Just don't let them shatter – don't let them break, or he would, too._

Her eyes were weighted when she finally did awaken – a burden of untold truth settling over her like the waves onto the shore.

 _"Meliodas?"_ He _choked –_ her _voice_ , she didn't know yet – she doesn't _know…_

"Elizabeth," his voice shook as his hand lightly grasped the upper part of her bruised, thin wrist. "Elizabeth, don't-"

"Where's-" her voice _broke_ , like a glacier separating from its only home, " _where's my baby?_ "

Her hand that isn't cradled by his slipped down to her stomach, slipping past linings and stitches and burns that were only there because _he was too late_ _ **too late**_ **,** and he watched her _gasp_ like someone had reached and stolen the breath right out from under her.

-and she let out a _wail_ , so broken and haunting he would _never, ever_ let himself forget – he could _never_ forget the sound of his wife dying a little bit alongside his unborn daughter.

.

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It's dark in her room, god it's _so dark_ , and she sits there, waiting for a miracle to happen – waiting for death to take her by the hand, and he doesn't _stop her._

.

.

Her hands were always tightly wrapped around something – a relic, a necklace, a pillow – he watched her consistently grab onto something, _anything_ for support.

For the support he _couldn't_ provide her.

He had no words, he was living through the _unimaginable._

 _"Have you seen them? Did you hear – they lost a baby, before they even got to meet her. What a shame, they say the wife is so stricken they wouldn't be surprised if she dies of grief…"_

 _"Those poor souls….living through the unimaginable…"_

 _"Such a_ _ **pity**_ _…"_

He didn't deserve her – the sinful man who was always too late, he couldn't even save his own _daughter._

" _My beautiful Melody_ ," she cried in the night, hands shaking with the disastrous grief she had been battling ever since that night, ever since…

They stopped sleeping in the same bed, and he could feel himself drifting away.

He spent his days circling the city, lost in his own thoughts, words too far to interfere.

He couldn't hear anything but the sound of her cries and the music of his guilt.

" _Won't you comfort her_?" Diane – her oldest friend, the maid of honor at their wedding, asked him, every day, just before he'd turn the corner to the bluffs.

Won't you comfort her? Won't you comfort your sick - (your _dying_ ) - _wife_?

He was hollow, her words passed through him like sound through aluminum. He blinked, and in an instant, everything was different.

\- _I love you,_ never really meant much to him.

He _knew_ she loved him, and she knew he loved her, it was inevitable, _obvious_ even.

- _And I, you,_ he would always say back, because the pink hint to her cheeks always elated him and her follow-up smile could bring him to his knees.

He never thought he would see the day when she'd stop saying it.

Instead of holding her hand – he danced around the prospect of comfort – instead, he drowned himself in guilt and suppression and pain, because he deserved it – what better retribution was there than the utmost suffering and agony?

She – in turn – breathed in the secondhand smoke of his atonement – blame and doubt and torment clouding her vision and self-hatred clawing at her lungs, poisoning her from the inside out.

They were falling apart at the seams – _one, two, three, fur, five, six seven, eight,_ _ **nine-**_

.

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The funeral was dark – no rain, no sounds, no cries – just darkness and **silence** , oh _god_ , he never could _stand_ the silence.

.

.

She always did have something in her hand – a storybook, a candle, a memory – but it all changed when he _finally_ made sure that the thing she held in her hand – was _his_.

.

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Their lives were broken glass – scattered in the wind and sharp at the edges, there was no right way to do this.

He always was willing to risk his hands bleeding to put her back together again.

Every shard that cut him he would smile at, instead of shrinking away in pain, he would console them. The pieces of his broken wife were still precious to him, no matter how crumbled and disfigured they were.

They _scream –_ and fight and _cry_ and break – just for each other, _only_ for each other _._

Every word cut deeper, glass sinking to the nerve and searching for sinful purchase, wishing pain on one another like two vipers, poised for the kill.

He was the first to relinquish his power – he'd had enough of holding back with her – he couldn't afford to lose her, he _couldn't_ lose her _, not her too_ , he needed her like the earth needs the _sun._

When he handed her the reigns – when he _finally_ gave her the power she so desired to hold over him – she surprised him by breaking down beside him.

They had both lost themselves in the event of the unimaginable.

- _and_ , it was up to them both to hold the candle up and together, _only together_ , piece the broken glass of their lives back up to the sculpture it once was.

.

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It's dark in her room.

.

.

But together – they turned on the lights.

.

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Only with her hand his was fit to die, no matter how many scars graced them, no matter how many cuts he received from repairing broken glass, hers would always be the home he could faithfully return to.

And this time – under the peaceful sanctuary of an oak tree, where they had first planted their memorial garden – he was the one to say _I love you._

And she – with salty resolve dripping down the apples of her cheeks, replied only with what he knew she'd say.

" _And I, you_."

.

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 **pointless drabble. leave a review to flame me pls.**

 **edit: melody is the headcanoned name of meliodas and elizabeths daughter, via some kid named justice, idk.**


End file.
